Gen.Giap: US should help Vietnam HANOI - Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap masterminded the guerrilla war that drove the American military from Vietnam, and now at 88, he's inviting them back — but this time, as a friend. Dressed in an olive military uniform with four gold stars on each shoulder, the somewhat reclusive Giap succumbed Saturday to a barrage of media requests seeking his reflections on the Vietnam War, which ended 25 years ago this month with the communist victory that reunited the country. Americans are not only welcome back, said the white-haired general, but they have an obligation to return and rebuild the impoverished southeast Asian nation where more than 58,000 Americans and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese died in the conflict. ``We can put the past behind, but we cannot completely forget it,'' Giap said. ``As we help in finding missing U.S. soldiers, the United States should also help Vietnam overcome the extremely enormous consequences of the war.'' The United States has refused to talk about war reparations, although the Americans are negotiating to share research on the effects of Agent Orange and other toxic defoliants that U.S. planes sprayed to strip away cover for the forces Giap commanded. The two countries re-established diplomatic relations five years ago, a limited number of U.S. firms have invested money, and American pop culture is rapidly seeping into the fabric of traditional Vietnamese society. Still, relations can be awkward, with the Americans seeking more help in determining the fate of missing soldiers, and the Vietnamese looking for additional money and technology to develop an economy where the average person makes roughly a dollar a day. Giap, who successfully ousted the Japanese and French forces in Vietnam before taking on the Americans, is long retired. He seldom appears in public or grants interviews, though he is the most prominent Vietnamese figure still living from the war era. His only battle now, he said, is ``to win the difficult war against poverty and backwardness.'' The former general shows signs of age — his right eye occasionally twitches and he needs thick glasses to read. But speaking in a strong, clear voice, he reminisced for more than two hours Saturday with a group of journalists at the red-carpeted Government Guesthouse, and made clear that his revolutionary fire still burns strong. ``In a little over decade I will be 100, but my communist spirit still remains that of a youth,'' said Giap. With photographers clustered at his feet, the animated Giap waved his arms for emphasis and even slammed his palm on his chair to drive home one point. The general smiled with amusement when recalling how both friends and foes have for centuries underestimated the strength and determination of Vietnam's armies. In the war against the Americans, even the supportive Soviet Union and China questioned Giap on how he expected win. A Chinese official suggested that fight could go on for a century, while a Soviet leader asked for a comparison of firepower. Giap explained that he would have been doomed to defeat if he had tried to go toe-to-toe with the Americans and their endless waves of B-52 bombers. ``If I fought in the Soviet Union way, I could not stand for two hours,'' Giap told then-Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin. ``I will fight in the Vietnamese way, and I will win. After our victory, I went back and Comrade Kosygin shook my hand and said, `Congratulations. You fought very well.''' In recent years, Giap has also met with his former Americans rivals, who asked Giap the secrets of his guerrilla warfare. He told Robert McNamara, the U.S. defense secretary for much of the war, ``You saw only our backward weapons. You left out the most important factor, the strength of the Vietnamese people.'' Upon meeting Elmo Zumwalt, the former commander of the U.S. Navy forces who died in January, Giap told how the Vietnamese had been able to put much of the war's bitterness behind them. ``When you came with a Thompson (submachine) gun, I treated you one way. Now that you come back as a tourist, I treat you differently,'' Giap told the admiral. Giap's victories over more powerful foreign armies gave him many proud moments, but none more stirring than on April 30, 1975, the day American helicopters lifted off in a mad rush from the U.S. Embassy compound in Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital now known as Ho Chi Minh City. ``It's hard to describe how happy we were. Many of us, including me, had tears in our eyes,'' he said. ``It was a total and complete victory by Vietnam against the Western imperialists.'' Associated Press - April 8, 2000.